I work for Red Hat, where I lead JBoss technical direction and research/development. Prior to this I was SOA Technical Development Manager and Director of Standards. I was Chief Architect and co-founder at Arjuna Technologies, an HP spin-off (where I was a Distinguished Engineer). I've been working in the area of reliable distributed systems since the mid-80's. My PhD was on fault-tolerant distributed systems, replication and transactions. I'm also a Professor at Newcastle University and Lyon.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

I've been doing a lot of international travel in the last few weeks, with more to come. It can be annoying at times on flights, what with the people who knock you with their bags if you're sat on the aisle; passengers who put so much stuff under their seats that it encroaches on your leg space; those who recline their seats when you're trying to eat; then there are the passengers who bring suitcases on board big enough to live in (people, it's not carry-on if you have to wheel it in or need help picking it up!); or those kids who cry all flight and kick the back of your seat.

But the passengers who annoy me the most are those idiots who throw bags into the overhead lockers and rely on the door to keep things in! Then when someone else opens it, guess who the bags land on?! And when the guilty party simply states "Oh, I didn't realise", it really doesn't help! Look, if you didn't realise then you really should go back to school and learn about gravity! The next person who does that is likely to get more than harsh words from me.

Tuesday, September 04, 2012

I've been dreading September because it represents the busiest travel schedule that I can recall having for many years. After this week it seems that I am away from the country every week for the next 7 weeks, stopping back in the UK to make sure my family remember what I look like! I'm at JavaOne, StrangeLoop, a JBUG, a Cloud-TM meeting, new hire orientation for our Fuse acquisition, a Customer Advisory Board meeting and a Quarterly Business Review. On average I think I'll have 2 days a week at home and will see the inside of planes more than the inside of my home. Ouch!